


in the silence we can make a sound

by charleybradburies



Series: it's our resistance // you can't resist us [5]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Author Is Sleep Deprived, Bran is Being Weird, Drabble, First Meetings, Gen, Ghost is the Best Boy, Letters, Minor Arya Stark/Gendry Waters, POV Gendry, Pack Dynamics, Political Alliances, Poor Gendry, Post-Canon, Season/Series 07, Travel, Wolves, also poor Gendry's Horse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-31 14:46:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13977333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charleybradburies/pseuds/charleybradburies
Summary: Gendry doesn't really know what to make of some of the strange things that happen on his way to Winterfell.[title from "going home" by the score.]





	in the silence we can make a sound

**Author's Note:**

> It's short and not my best, but I really wanted to continue this series so here y'all go. (It's just a short moment anyway but ACTION IS COMING UP SO THERE'S THAT)
> 
> Please, kudos if you like it, and comment!!

As if the sprint back to Eastwatch hadn’t been bad enough, this time Gendry's afraid there’s a chance he might be going mad. 

Sure, this time he gets weaponry, and some food, and a horse - and people’s fates don’t directly depend on his success in his travels - but after more than a week he’s gained an understanding of why Southerners seem to think of Northerners as bitter and reclusive, and it’s quite plainly the cold. If he had a castle to stay in, he wouldn’t want to leave it, either. At night, he likes to picture Winterfell the way Arya used to speak of it, imposing but cozy, with its warm walls and grey stone.

On top of the cold and the fact of passing by newly-established wildling villages that may or may not tolerate his presence, he can’t shake the feeling of being followed, especially by animals. No people interfere with his journey, as though they're too busy to even notice a man camped by some nearby clearing, but plenty of animals decide to.

One day, a stray cat makes his acquaintance by sharing some warmth and convinces him to feed it. Another, a lone wolf lays barely feet away and watches him set up his fire for the night before going off and hunting down two rabbits, dropping one by his fire and running off. Nearly every other day, some sort of bird will come watch him, like there’s some sort of strange agreement to see him to Winterfell. The closer he gets to Last Hearth, the more common the visits become, and once he’s left it, he spends no more than a few moments by himself. 

The last morning he spends outside - for the dead of night had certainly fallen by the time he’d seen what he thought might be Winterfell, and by that time he’d been riding near a month, which fit the timeframe Jon had told him - he’s joined at the fireside by what he knows to be a direwolf, a massive white beast with red eyes that looks at him more gently than he would have expected, which tells him it probably belongs with a Stark. It doesn’t spend much time looking at him but creeps over towards his horse. He makes the almost-stupid decision to tell it off, but the beast just looks back at him, cognizant it’s done something wrong. 

He walks over to calm his horse, and the direwolf sits down on its haunches like it’s waiting for him. A direwolf should be able to hunt for itself, but his remaining food is in his saddlebag, and he goes to take the bag away. Surely if they were as smart as Arya had told him, it would continue to understand that he meant no harm. If it thinks he means harm, though, he’s sure he’s a dead man anyway. 

As he opens the bag, it makes a gruff sound, like an attempt at a growl, and suddenly he knows that the wolf is Jon’s - Ghost, who had always been near silent, who had gone with Jon to the Wall and would have come back to Winterfell with him as well. If he could smell that Gendry had been near Jon, then that explained his calm behavior. 

Gendry goes back over to the fire, and Ghost follows curiously, nipping at the bag as soon as Gendry sits down. He takes out what’s left of his food, starting with his bread, and Ghost gives him a look he somehow recognizes as confusion. He sniffs the wineskin and then looks back up at the bag. 

_The letter,_ Gendry realizes, and reaches for the roll of parchment Jon had given him. He had orders to give it to Sansa immediately upon his arrival - and no one else - and assumed it gave explanation for his choices in regards to Daenerys, explanation that Jon didn’t want to chance someone else reading. While Gendry was not the world’s most perceptive person, he’d gone North getting to know Jon as someone who did not seem at all fond of her, and the declaration that only she could save Westeros from the Night King did not seem in line with how he’d spoken before they’d actually gone beyond the Wall.

He pulls the letter out of the bag, holding it up in front of himself like a bone for a dog. Ghost sniffs it, then gingerly grabs it and sprints off, a white blur that fades into snow-covered ground before Gendry’s even stood back up.

He curses, but there’s nothing else he can do but continue on.

As Gendry goes about getting his things ready again, a raven with three eyes lands on his saddle and caws at him. It flies away when he’s done, in the same direction Ghost had gone, and when he’s up on horseback, he follows.


End file.
